Sunday, 24 June 2012

Huge Support on Twitter for The Great Cafe Challenge

Farmers must connect & communicate with city folk. Dairy
farmers need to take responsibility for their own Dairy Farming PR. By using twitter we spread the word about the
#greatcafechallenge (where farmers are encouraged to take farming magazines
into their local cafes or waiting rooms) all round the world to countries like Australia, UK, Ireland, USA, Canada as well as NZ.

Pasture based
dairy farmers (in fact all farmers), here is an opportunity to connect &
communicate to urban people & visitors to your farming area. I strongly
believe that farmers need to take responsibility for & actually do
themselves the Public Relations, connection to & communication with the
urban folks.

“If it’s going to be then it’s up to me”. You cannot nor should
you rely on other people or PR agencies to communicate the good news stories
about farming & farming families. The positivity will only be seen as
genuine if it comes from you the farmers. Sure we have PR agencies within the
industry & the agro political groups work hard on our behalf. Yes we have
friends in the rural press but farmers need to play a much more positive role themselves.
This week on Twitter (social media) we really started the #greatcafechallenge
with astonishing results.

Last week on my blog (see further down the page) I talked about the concept of farmers taking in recent but pre-read farming
magazines to their local cafes, coffee houses, waiting rooms (Dentists, Barbers
& Hairdressers) to allow & encourage urban people to read & learn about
farming, farming issues & to learn more about where & how their food is
produced. Let’s share the good news stories about farming!

Don’t allow a
breakdown between urban & country understanding to create barriers that
interfere with farmer’s legitimate “social license to farm”. Most rural issues
are in fact whole community issues.

I think
farmers need to learn how to use Twitter.What is Twitter? Twitter is a micro
blogging form of social media. Using 140 characters or less twitter allows you
to communicate with the world. Farmers in many parts of the world are very
effectively talking not only to other like-minded farmers but communicating
directly with the consumers, news agencies, rural professionals & the
world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

In 2007 there were 400,000 tweet
messages being sent per quarter. In March 2012 (6th birthday)
Twitter had over 140 million users sending 340 million tweets per day. Go to https://twitter.com/

Twitter is easy to use & takes very
little time send effective messages, photos or tell others about websites that
promote agriculture & farming stories.

#greatcafechallenge
is the campaign to get farmers to take their used/recycled farming magazines
into the local cafes or waiting rooms near you. This week I found in Palmerston
North great goodwill by the local cafes & retailers towards farmers &
farming. They thought it was a great idea to have farming magazines in their
reading spaces. Why not….there is only so many cycling or fashion magazines I
can read.

I think it is important that we give the cafes & hairdressers the
publicity they deserve for supporting farmers & agriculture.

A dairy farmer
from Carterton, NZ has suggested that we should put a sticker on the front page
of the farming magazines that reads “Thank you for reading me. If you take me
home please take me to another café next week. Thank you for reading about
farming. We want everyone to understand farmers, farming & where your food
is produced. Farmers care about our consumers.” Great idea.

If it’s
going to be it’s up to you!

Farmers please take your farming magazines into
your local cafes.

To our friendly Café owners/city retailers & Managers can
I say on behalf of my farming friends a huge THANK YOU for supporting your
local farmers.

Thank you For Your Support to your local farmers by stocking farming magazines in your cafe or waiting rooms:-

About Me

Tom Phillips proudly a Kiwi. I'm based at the New Centre of Excellence in Farm Business Management, Massey University, New Zealand.The Centre is a joint project of both Massey & Lincoln Universities. International Low Cost Pasture based Dairy Industry Consultant has worked in New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Ireland & France.Expert in grazing management & dairy farm business management,Onfarm Discussion Group facilitation & training.
I am a strong advocate for pasture based dairy farming partly because it is environmentally & animal friendly with a low carbon footprint but also it creates a profitable strong business which is family friendly.